rough time

@outlander This might be a strange kind of question, but are you trying too hard? By that I mean, to please them. Therapy is about you, and when you haven’t been important through life, you get lost.

I tried a lot of psychs too, but finding someone who heard me, sometime not the spoken words either, but heard me through my actions, positive or negative. I’m not a communicator at all, so talking can be challenging. I write things that I can’t say, I’ve found that to be one of my strengths.

Talking about trauma brings things up that are very uncomfortable and unbearable. Once the session is over, the re living goes on in private.

As I see it @outlander the only way forward is for you to actually find what you want to move forward with and in that regards it is up to you. I think there is a serious question to ask yourself - and I mean no disrespect here as it is a question many of us need to ask ourselves - that is ...do you actually want to move forward or are you stuck in this prepetual state of being unhappy because it is the most comfortable and knowledgeable one for you. I will explain that a bit better to clarify - often when we have had a disrupted childhood or upbringing where responsibilities and the usual pathway for children have not been a part of our lives we reach out for people to care about us in anyway possible - and that is not always in a healthy way. It does not allow us to grow socially or emotionally and we find solace in the misery because that is where we have had all the attention before. It takes immense personal growth and a lot of work to fight our way out of that mode of thinking and it has been obvious here to me that your upbringing has not equipped you with the necessary skills to deal with many of these social and emotional situations. That is not your fault though - you have had pressures and responsibilities lumped onto your shoulders that are not yours. I honestly believe that for you to be able to begin to move forward you have to tackle the inequality of relationship that happens between your mother and your sister. You are not their carer nor are you their mother but so much of the responsibiliy is placed on your shoulder. In effect your mother is avoiding the same responsibilities with your sisters as she did with you. You should not have had the responsibility of looking after your pop at your age either - that should have been the role of the older adults in the family. Both those things have a major impact on both your emotional wellbeing and social development. The physical things now are exacerbated by the other demands you unfairly have on you and quite honestly - something has to give but unfortunately it has to be you that makes those changes.

You also have not always done everything you could for yourself because others have demanded your time - and that you have given. What would happen if you said no - I think I know the answer to that but how is that any different to the way you are presently being treated. The ability to say No is also a skill you need to learn - it does get easier with time as well. I know you will say 'but I get even more grief from family when I say no' but quite frankly that is their issue and not yours. Boundaries with family are the hardest to put in place but you are worthy of your own life and I do agree partly here with your pdoc - the longer you resist those changes the harder they will be to make. But it ultimately has to come down to you - do you actually want to make those changes and do you actually want to find ways forward.

As for you nurse and gp - sometimes we become over-familiar within those relationships when tey have been consistent and ongoing and when that happens it can be hard to open up as we once did. That is a form of self-protection as well - once someone knows so much about us we don't want them to know anymore and we don't believe in the trust we have placed in them because history tells us not to trust anyone. That may be where you are currently sitiing with both of them. There is also a line sometimes that we inadvertedly don't want to cross between the physical and emotional care - once our supports know us 'intimately' it can trigger the shutdown response even if we have a good relationship with them.

I honestly do not believe you are ready for trauma work whilst so much in your world is in chaos. In my opinion you need a more stable environment around you to be able to deal with all that stuff. Some people are never ready for trauma work or constantly re-visiting the past but that is something you need to talk to your pdoc and psych about and plan a way forward that best suits you and your needs. If you don't know where you want to go then how can you find a way to get there!

Hey @MDT @Maggie 👋😁